


When I Look In The Mirror (I See Only You)

by Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)



Category: (I GUESS?!), Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel TV Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Frank is not in touch with his feelings okay?, Frank is talked into catsitting, Gen, Karen has a cat, Role Reversal, Slow Burn, delicious tropeyness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/Primarybufferpanel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The AU where Frank Castle is the cop who finds Karen moments after she has shot James Wesley, and ends up in a complicated tangle of feels, cats, and aiding and abetting a fugitive despite his best attempts to be a clean, law abiding cop</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He heard the shots when he was getting out of his patrol car, the ringing of the phone when he was coming through the door of the... some abandoned factory cantina? He wasn't sure, it didn't matter, because fuck, he was coming here to check out some vague report about a woman getting dragged out of a car and now—

Frank didn't have time to radio in 'shots fired', he was coming around the internal corner into the larger space and heard the sound of shoes, heels? and had no more than a vague impression of somebody running toward him with a gun aimed at the floor before he'd reflexively shoved them—her— face-first against the nearest wall, one arm spun up behind her back, his free hand sliding down hers until he could take the gun and tuck it in the back of his belt. Then he pulled that hand behind her back too, cuffed her thin wrists. Kept his hand on the chain of the cuffs and pressed the side of his shoulder between her shoulderblades, leaning some weight to keep her in place.

She made a low, animal sound of hurt, and the world sped back up to its normal pace as he took stock of the situation. Her whole body was heaving with panic, and there was an ugly abrasion along her temple and cheekbone from hitting the wall. He hadn't been trying to hurt her, but he also hadn't been trying not to – it was all combat reflex, and she was much lighter than most of the people he arrested.

He saw the man in the suit sit sprawled in the chair, blood stains blooming on his white shirt. Heard the phone start to ring again.

Fucking hell.

"That's Fisks man," he said, more to himself than to her. James Wesley.

"He w-was—" she choked out, breath hitching painfully, "g-going to kill me. H-he kidnapped me, I w-woke up here and, and—" she paused to heave air into her lungs, and he refocused on her. Eased off his weight a little, so she could breathe better.

"...and he didn't take your gun when he kidnapped you," he said, skeptical. He suddenly realised why she looked vaguely familiar; wasn't this the woman who'd been found next to the dead body of her date, not so long ago? She'd gone free, but it made him look a little harder at the situation, not assume it'd been self defence. She sure seemed to get tangled up in more than her share of deadly situations.

"His. He, he put it on the table," she said quietly, cheek still pressed against the wall. "Got dis-distracted. By his," the air seemed to go out of her all at once. "Phone," she whispered, sounding exhausted.

He hummed in acknowledgement, decided he needed to go and call this in. Put her in the back of his car while he waited for backup to investigate the scene.

Frank pulled her away from the wall, hand curled around her upper arm, used his other hand to steady her when she stumbled. It only registered now that she was wearing a pencil skirt and pumps, for fuck's sake. One of the heels was broken. Not what you'd wear if you were planning to kill someone, presumably.

Her body was rigid with fear as he walked her outside, breath fast and flat, and she made a noise of what he thought might be surprise when he guided her into the back of his car, hand curled around her head to make sure she didn't hit her head.

"S-so you don't work for him," she said quietly when he'd settled behind the wheel. He checked her handgun was empty and offloaded it into the glove box. Her voice sounded a lot more steady now.

" _What_ did you just say?"

It came out quiet, dangerous, but she seemed to have calmed suddenly, steel threading through her voice that he wouldn't have suspected was in her until now.

"You don't work for Fisk, or you would have killed me," she said quietly. "But you must know he's got cops in his pocket. Moment he knows I—if you bring me in for this, he'll have me killed within the day."

The problem was that Frank _did_ know that. He hadn't been at the department long, having taken a long break after the car accident to recover and to move to a different neighbourhood. He'd tried to stay out of the dodgy elements and just do his job. He was still so new to policing, a world that was sometimes so similar and sometimes so crucially different after his decade in the military. Hadn't known where to take his concerns. God, he missed Maria, missed having her to confide in, to talk these kind of things through with. He thought he kind of knew what she would have said about this though.

It wasn't hard for a cop to kill a suspect and throw it on self defence. It might be slightly harder to make it believable that this woman had posed a legit threat, but nobody would look all that hard. If Fisk wanted her dead, she didn't stand a chance. She might not even make it to the holding cells.

"Fuck," he muttered, putting the radio handset back into its holder. Stared out through the windshield for a few breaths. Was he considering this? Yes, he was. This was his line, apparently. He might not be able to fix the fucked up situation at the station, the amount of times suspects died in interrogation rooms or holding cells. But he could do this: he could stop another person from being in that situation, because no matter how it had turned out, he believed that she hadn't come here intending to kill Fisk's man. And Frank had met Wesley. If he was a betting man he would put good money on the man really having been so arrogant as to put a loaded gun on the table.

He took her handgun back out of the glovebox. Grabbed some gauze and an alcohol wipe from his first aid kit. Got out of the car, took a deep breath of cool night air, and opened her door. Blocked it with his body, and she looked up at him, tense and quiet.

"Dump the gun in the river, ma'am. Get out of the city," he told her, voice pitched low.

She nodded jerkily, and he took her by the arm to guide her out of the backseat. Turned her to face the car so he could undo the cuffs. She stood very still until he stepped back. When she turned around he handed her the gauze, so she could clean her face and not attract as much attention. She nodded and tucked it into her coat pocket. Then he held out the 0.380. Her trembling fingers brushed his as she took the gun, but they took it with a sure grip. She glanced up at his face, seeming to wait for something, and he nodded his head in the direction of the back alleys that could lead her to the road.

He was vaguely aware of his own guilt for sending her into dark alleys to make her way home alone. His conscience demanded more, demanded that he saw her home safely, but he needed to be here on scene, playing his part in hiding her role in what had happened. He'd have to hope that was enough.

Her jaw clenched, but she started to walk in that direction, awkwardly on her one broken heel. Frank watched her go for a few seconds, then got back into his car. The moment she heard his car door close, she started to run, and moments later she'd disappeared into the shadows.

He radioed in, reporting having found an unknown male, seven gunshots to the chest, no sign of the shooter. The longer he could keep this death from being reported on the airwaves as James Wesley's, the more time she would have. He hoped it would be enough.

 

A week passed and Frank still couldn't stop thinking about her. Karen Page, he'd found out later. If she was safe. If she'd left the city like he'd told her.

As far as he knew, her name hadn't been connected to Wesley's death at all, and the murder had been blamed on somebody who'd turned up dead the same day. He didn't know if that was just the official police version or if it was what Fisk actually believed. He hoped so, but he couldn't help the way his heart clenched whenever a female body was reported. _Please don't be her._


	2. Chapter 2

A few days later and he found out for sure. He was stopping for coffee at his usual place on his route to work and his eye was drawn by long blond hair, a tall, slender woman waiting by the counter for her coffee. It was her, dressed in a pencil skirt and blouse, and he felt a faint shock of recognition on seeing her in such a different context. He wasn't sure if he was relieved to see her, and see her looking well, or annoyed that she hadn't left town. She glanced at him, caught his gaze, and walked away with her coffee, to a booth by the wall.

He didn't have time for this, not really. But when he picked up his coffee, he still followed. At least he was out of uniform, so he didn't think it would draw attention.

"Thought I told you to get outta town," he frowned, sitting down opposite her. She looked... well, better, at least. Wasn't hard after how he'd first met her, he supposed. The scrape on her face had almost healed, but he could see how her make-up wasn't quite concealing dark smudges under her eyes.

"I don't always do what I'm told,—"

He could hear the 'officer' stick in her throat, and told her "Frank. Frank Castle. And I noticed that."

—Frank," she finished with a small quirk of her lips. "I'm Karen."

"What's so important it's keeping you in town, Karen?" he asked, taking a swig of his coffee. He needed to get going.

"Work," she shrugged. "I did leave for a few days, but…" she drifted off, looking past him to the entrance of the coffee shop. Seemed reassured by whatever she saw there. "Well, I figure that if anybody would come for me, they would have done it by now."

He couldn't deny the logic in that, even though he wanted to, wanted to tell her she was in danger, to get the hell out of the city. 

"Haven't heard your name come up," he told her instead. "For what it's worth."

She nodded slowly, raising her coffeecup to her mouth. Glanced at him over the rim of it, and she seemed to be debating saying something. Frank waited her out.

"Back there… Wasn't sure you weren't setting me up to shoot me in the back," she said quietly.

His hand twitched at the memory of how she'd only started to run when she'd heard him get back into his car. It made sense that she'd wondered if he was in Fisks pocket after all, but just the thought of it made him want to grimace. He wasn't sure what to reply. 

"Felt bad for—" he gestured aimlessly with his coffee cup, "Not helping you get home safe." 

That clearly surprised her, and he felt oddly pleased with having improved her expectations of him. Then after a comfortable silence her eyes flashed to somebody at the door, and she got up, gathering up her bag and coffeecup. 

"Thank you," she said under her breath. 

"Stay safe," he could only say, before she'd walked over to meet a stout man in a grey suit, his face lighting up when he saw her. Boyfriend? They were clearly familiar, comfortable. Frank wondered if he knew about what had happened to her. She obviously hadn't want him to see Frank, ask questions, so probably not. 

Once they were gone he got up, surprised to see that only a few minutes had passed and that he wasn't running as late as he'd thought. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh, sir, somebody prepaid your coffee," said the barista, reaching under the counter to produce a cup with his name already on it. "A triple-shot dark roast for you, sir?"

"Uh, yes please," he said, too startled to ask her questions before she'd passed his cup along to the next barista, wished him a nice day and was moving on to the next person in line. 

When he was handed his coffee, he saw nothing unusual about the paper cup. He glanced around the seating area, but didn't see anyone he recognised, so he left and continued his walk to the precinct, a little puzzled. 

When he was about to throw away his cup, he caught a glance at the bottom, and stopped himself just in time - something was written there. He made a surreptitious photo with his phone and tossed the cup.

A phone number. Well, okay then. Cloak and dagger shit. 

The phone rang at least six times before somebody picked up. 

"Hello?' 

He thought it was her voice, but wasn't completely sure. 

"Thanks for the coffee," he said, trying to sound casual.

"You're welcome." Yeah, it was definitely her, and she sounded cheerful, which threw him for a loop. 

"Any reason for all this cloak and dagger shit?"

"Sure. I've got an address I was hoping you could take a look at." 

"Uh-huh," he hummed, waiting for this to start making sense. 

"With some cop friends. And maybe some body armour."

Frank stopped in his tracks, to muted swearing of 'tourist!' from the people walking on the sidewalk behind him. 

"I'm gonna need a little more than that to go on," he said after a long moment, when he'd started walking again. The words 'I thought I told you to stay safe' froze in his throat, because she had something, and that was more important.

Plus, he got the feeling she had very clear ideas about taking orders from him. 

"Thought you might. Bus stop on 9th and 52 street," she said, and he looked up - that was only two blocks away. "See you there."

The connection dropped, and he wondered if she'd followed him, either today or at some earlier point, or if she'd just assumed his walking route. Not too much of a guess from that coffee place to the precinct, he supposed. 

She was standing there, in her neat office wear, tall and prim. Her face lit up when she saw him, and he felt his own eyes widen, startled. It was— he hadn't— it had been a long time since anybody had looked that pleased to see him appear, was all. 

"There you are. You'll forget your own head next," she said breezily, like they were familiar, like they had a routine. She handed him a shopping bag. Then to his astonishment she leaned in to brush a kiss over his cheek, shot him a smile, and flagged down the M11 bus that was just approaching. 

He only shook himself back into motion when the bus was driving away. Resisted the urge to look in the bag until he was a block away. There was an envelope with photos. 

_ What the hell are you doing, Karen? _

The photos were telelens shots of people being herded out of a container, in a location Frank had thought looked suspect, but several other cops insisted was clear. There were three sets, dated for the three past wednesdays. 

It was wednesday today. 

With this amount of proof they could justify a raid, and he immediately understood why she'd said 'cop  _ friends' _ . Only people he trusted. If word got to the wrong people, they'd never find anything. 


	4. Chapter 4

Frank was stripping off his riot gear when he caught a glimpse of her hair, lit up bright in the red and blue flashlights. He left his vest on and made his way over. She looked startlingly out of place here on the docks, in her pencil skirt and high heels, a notebook and pen in her hands. 

"Officer! Can you tell me anything about what is going on here?" she called out when he approached, and he gave her a very dry look. She damn well know what was going on. 

"We heard a lot of gunfire. Were there any casualties? Who are the ambulances for?"

They'd shot five of the traffickers. Four were already dead, and Frank suspected the fifth was going to be DOA by the time he made it to hospital. 

"For the victims of this operation," he said warily, feeling like he was being used for something, but he couldn't see what. 

"Is it true then that this was a human trafficking ring? Could it be related to the Russian human trafficking operation that was disrupted by the Devil of Hells kitchen a few weeks ago?" 

***

An article in the Bulletin, written by Ben Ulrich, shed some light on what she was up to. Being a pain in Wilson Fisk's neck. He hoped she was safe, wherever she was. Even if Fisk didn't know that she'd been the one to shoot Wesley, she had to be bringing herself to his attention now. 

***

A few days later he was called to that same Ben Ulrich's house. The amount of anger that had been directed at the journalist made him feel sick to his stomach, and it was hard not to call her, after.  _ Please be safe _ . 

***

The next day a body was found in an alley, a known predator, the kind they could never manage to put away for long enough. There were five 9mm rounds in his torso.  Frank tried not to wonder if they were from a .0380. Maybe he didn't have to worry about her safety as much as he did. Maybe he had to worry about the people around her. He didn't know how to feel about that. 

***

He didn't see her, or any trace of her, for about ten days. He barely had time to worry about her, because shit started to hit fans in all sorts of ways, and then the Feds came in to arrest about a third of his colleagues, and Fisk was arrested, broken free, and then delivered to their doorstep by the Devil himself. 

By the time it was all over he and Brett Mahoney stared at each other over their triple-strength coffee with a level of exhaustion Frank had previously only known in Iraq and that time both his kids and Maria had all been sick at the same time. The precinct was in shambles. They'd lost almost half their colleagues, and in the face of open cases, funerals and trying to get the hurriedly transferred-in new guys set up, both of them had been pulling double and triple shifts. 

***

"Oh honey, a package came for you," said Frank's elderly neighbour as he trudged toward his door. "Lucky I catch you know, haven't seen you home in days. Here, let me grab it for you."

She babbled on, friendly but apparently oblivious to Frank's exhaustion, and handed him a cardboard box from the sideboard in her entryway.

"Thanks," he grunted, tucking it under his arm as he opened the locks on his door. 

"You're welcome, honey. You really ought to get some sleep, you know, your face looks all bruised…"

"That's the plan," he agreed, trying to keep his temper. Like he didn't know he looked like shit warmed over. He hadn't managed a shave in two days and to be so out of regulations was like nails on a chalkboard to him. "Good day."

He tossed the package on the kitchen table, too tired to be curious, and kicked off his boots. When he'd showered and shaved and was standing in front of the open fridge in his boxers, pulling out a box of two day old takeout, the package caught his eye again. He settled at the table with his food and examined the box. 

A printed address sticker. No return address.

He sliced open the tape and huffed a laugh when he saw the contents. A bag of filter coffee.  _ Decaf  _ filter coffee. And a blank CD.

He'd gotten used to receiving information from Karen in a variety of ways, so this didn't seem particularly strange. The alarming thing was that he wasn't even alarmed that she apparently knew where he lived. 

He made got out his laptop and put in the CD, expecting to see photos or scans of incriminating files or things like that. Instead his music player popped up and there was the sound of… waves. Ocean waves. The music player showed the file was called 'relaxing sleep inducing ocean sounds.mp3'

The strange sound coming from his throat was apparently a rusty laugh. If even Karen 'Sleep when I am dead' Page told him to get some sleep, things had to be worse than he thought. 

***

He came to discover in the following week that she was a reporter now, working for the Bulletin. Perhaps in place of the man she'd worked with, grieved for - Ben Ulrich.

She seemed infinitely more at ease now Fisk was behind bars, even though neither of them were under the impression that Fisks influence was gone completely. But she spoke a little more freely, laughed a little easier. Looked like she slept better, too. 

They met regularly, first mostly over the police tape of crime scenes, and gradually also over coffee. It started with a good natured mutual prying for information about a drug operation, but soon they just chatted about anything, and almost every morning. It was always short, only for the time it took them to drink one cup of morning coffee—though he admitted to himself that he'd started to leave home a few minutes earlier than strictly necessary, and drank his coffee a little slower. He thought maybe she drank slowly too. 

On the mornings he saw Karen, Mahoney had started greeting him with " _ Good  _ morning" in a particular tone that said he knew something, but Frank pretended not to notice, happy to just keep these little morning meetings to himself. 

“You look like you’ve slept well.”

"Well, you know, not having to do triple shifts," Frank grunted, getting his uniform gearbelt from his locker. 

"Actual personal time is a great thing," Mahoney nodded agreeably. 

 

It grew to be normal so fast, meeting with Karen for morning coffee, like normal people might, that the nature of their first meeting was almost beginning to fade. When she smiled over the rim of her cup, softly, eyes cast down as if to hide her expression from him, it felt like the first glimpse of dawn after darkness. Like this could be something else, begun anew, something without fear and secrets. 


	5. Chapter 5

"So there's this guy, right? New in town, came in from Philly, I heard—anyway, real bad motherfucker, you know?" Frank's informant rambled, hands fidgeting. "You know what he says? Fisk hired him."

"Yeah?" Frank hummed. He'd been hearing the echoes of this new arrival for a couple of days, but this guy was the first he'd gotten to talk about it. Everybody else was too scared. "Fisk's in jail."

"Aw man, don't be like that, you an' I both know if the man wants to hire a hitman, he's got ways of doin' it. Ain't no sweat to a rich man like him, right?"

"Right. So this guy say who he's after?"

"I dunno man, some blonde chick? Must've really pissed off the big man, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Yeah, sure," Frank said, hoping his face didn't look as frozen as it felt. 

  
" _Karen_ ," he said to her voicemail. His voice felt dry and raspy, and he swallowed, trying to work up some moisture in his throat. "Karen, you need to get the hell out of town. Fisk's—he's sent a man for you. A hitman. I'm gonna do what I can to pick him up, but you—" he took a deep breath, "—please do whatever you have to to be safe, okay?"   

He didn't hear back from her. He hoped that was just because she'd gone as far off the radar as possible. Fisk would want her death to be public, right? If he had her killed, her body wouldn't be somewhere it wouldn't be found immediately. 

That's what he kept hoping, anyway. 

* * *

 

A few days later he was walking home after his late shift when a masked man stepped out of a nearby alley, early enough that Frank could recognise his silhouette. He still drew his sidearm, but held it pointed to the ground, warily waiting for what the man might want. Mahoney had told him, about the cooperation he'd received, so Frank was willing to let this play out. 

Daredevil gestured him toward the alley, and Frank cautiously stepped toward him, staying at the mouth of it, swept it for danger, for other people. Far as he could tell the vigilante was alone; just sticking to the shadows. 

Frank would too, if he had those ridiculous horns on his costume. 

"Karen Page," Daredevil said in a low voice.

"What about her?" Frank answered gruffly. He might be willing to believe Mahoney that Daredevil wasn't working against the police, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to keep his guard up. 

"Where is she? You were in contact with her."

"Were you?" Frank raised his eyebrows. That was interesting. He supposed it could come from Karen's work as a reporter. 

"She gave up her apartment, her phone is disconnected," the man said, sounding frustrated. "I don't know what happened."

"And you're worried?" Frank said. 

Daredevil hesitated, then nodded. 

"You an' me both," Frank sighed. "Fisk sent a hitman after her."

The man jolted into alertness, though he hadn't exactly been slouching before. 

"I warned her soon as I heard of it," Frank explained. "Been trying to find the guy, but… I haven't heard from her since. Hope she's outta town."

"Shit," Daredevil said, more to himself than to Frank. "You got a name? Description?"

Frank hesitated. He'd reached out to the Philly PD and got the bare basics. Stuff he wasn't supposed to share with the public, but he hadn't found anything but whispers so far. And if this Daredevil was invested in keeping Karen safe—

"Known as the Jawn. Name we've got is Brock Bryant, but that's probably an alias. Big guy, bald head, likes to get up close to make sure his—" Frank took a breath and resolutely did not think about Karen, "—victims get the message from his employer."

Daredevil nodded.

"Only consistent rumour is that he's been staying down by the ferry terminals. Might be moving around."

"Right." The man hesitated a moment, then turned away and disappeared further into the alley. Frank watched him for a moment, then turned to continue on his way home.  

 

The morning shift found the Jawn delivered to their doorstep of the precinct, cuffed, bound and beaten bloody. 

Frank didn't know if he hated Daredevil or if he was grateful or some sort of churning mix of both. He believed in following the law, following procedure. It was there for a reason - to protect cops and to protect the people from cops who forgot they're there to protect the people. 

But Daredevil had been able to solve this problem in a single night, in a way Frank wasn't able to and probably wouldn't have been able to do within the law if he'd had all week. Daredevil could protect Karen in a way Frank couldn't. 

Apparently Daredevil's 'thing' was that he didn't kill— at least not on purpose, plenty of people died after their encounter with him— and for once Frank was a little bit sorry for that. World wouldn't exactly have been a worse place if this scum had met a vigilante with less scrupules. 

They couldn't get out of the Jawn if he'd already found Karen, but just the fact that he was still hanging around Hell's Kitchen when he had an obvious loathing of being in New York suggested he hadn't. Plus, Frank thought with a wince, given how public the bodies of the Jawn's victims usually appeared, they would have found her body by now. 

He had no idea to let her know she was safe, but then, it wasn't all that likely that Fisk would give up, either, so maybe she  _ wasn't  _ safe. He spared a regretful thought for their morning chats over coffee. Not likely to ever happen again.

* * *

 

In the weeks after they'd gotten the Jawn locked away to await his trial, Frank had to remind himself every time he bought his morning coffee. Karen couldn't come back because she wasn't safe. No matter how much he missed their talks, she should just stay gone. 

Things got hectic—as if they ever weren't in Hell's Kitchen—with weird rumours of ninjas. Whatever Daredevil was up to, he was clearly very busy and his activities rained down on the police. If Frank wasn't glad that the guy had gotten the Jawn off the streets, he'd be even less complimentary. 


	6. Chapter 6

There was somebody in his apartment.

Frank had his firearm in his hand before he even thought about it, suddenly back in Iraq, clearing huts and houses. Except his apartment smelled, incongruously, of coffee. Coffee and some unknown, slightly chemical smell. 

He edged around the corner, leading with his weapon. The light in the bathroom was on, the door wide open, and he trained his weapon on—

—her. It was  _ her _ . 

"Jesus suffering  _ fuck _ , Karen."

She was standing in front of the sink in jeans and a sports bra. Her wet hair was shorter, jaw length, and she was applying dye to it from a squeeze bottle. When she looked at him he swore some more. She had a heavy bruise on her cheekbone, a couple on her torso, and the movements of her arms looked strained, painful. 

She glanced at his gun, an implied  _ are you gonna use that?  _

He holstered it, sighing heavily, trying to force down his heartrate. 

"Anybody ever tell you it's not a good idea to invade people's houses?" he snapped at her, unsettled by how close he'd come to shooting her before he'd even recognised her. "Especially cops' houses? Cops who are _vets_?"

She looked down at her stuff, damp hair falling in front of her face, hiding her from his view, and he counted backward from twenty, reminded himself  _ that was then and this is now _ . Took a closer look at the things she'd spread out on the little ledge of the sink. 

Make-up. She'd come here to dye her hair and cover the bruise.

"Sorry," she said in a low voice, eyes back on her own reflection. "Didn't have much of a choice. Hoped the coffee might signal…" she gestured vaguely.

He grunted in acknowledgement, more mollified than he thought he ought to be. Turned away to hang up his coat, put his firearm away into its safe. Poured two cups of coffee. 

 

She came out of the bathroom a few minutes later in a zipped up hoodie, her hair covered, the dye working in. The bruise drew his eyes, though he tried not to focus on it. She was alive, in relatively good health. The thought somebody had evidently taken a swing at her sickened him, but apparently she'd dealt with it. 

He got an ice pack out of the freezer, wrapped it in a clean dish towel, and held it out to her. 

She held it to her cheek and stood uncertainly for a moment, until he gestured at the coffee he'd put on the table for her. She sank down into a kitchen chair. 

"Thank you."

"Why are you back?" he ask, before he could stop himself. "Safer to stay away."

"I don't like running from things that scare me," she said quietly, with a kind of finality that made him not bother trying to talk her out of coming back.  

"Mm."

They drank their coffee in comfortable silence for a while, and he could see the tension of his arrival go out of her. She felt safe with him, it struck him suddenly. 

He thought about the bruises on her torso, on her face. 

"Do I want to know what happened?" He very much wanted to know what happened, but he was realistic enough to know there were things he was better off being unaware about, either because they would fill him with futile fury or because they were illegal and he might at some point be asked about them. 

He couldn't stop glancing at her face, where the bruise sat, tender and ugly on her skin. It being covered by the ice pack didn't help as much as he would have thought. 

"Self defence lessons," she said brightly, as if she didn't expect him to believe it. 

He gave her a very skeptical look. 

"Probably not," she admitted over the rim of her coffee cup. 

Right then. 

They were quiet for a while, both of them tired. 

"You eaten?" he finally asked. 

She shook her head, looking a bit puzzled, as if the concept of food had slipped her mind entirely. 

Frank huffed and pushed to his feet to open the fridge, inspecting the contents. Frittata it was.

He felt her eyes on him as he took ingredients out of the fridge.

"What?"

"You cook?"

"Don't sound so surprised, ma'am."

"Aren't cops supposed to live on donuts and black coffee and takeout?"

He huffed an amused breath.    
"Now you're describin' yourself. Minus the donuts, I'm guessin'."

"Not true," she countered with the glimpse of a grin. "Also, sometimes I eat pickled eel."

That sounded like an injoke with somebody else, but he didn't ask, figuring she'd clam up if he started fishing. He turned back to his food prep instead, chopping up the leftover potatoes from the day before and putting a frying pan on the stove. 

"Had a family," he said. It was easier to say somehow, like this. Not looking at her. "Kids. A wife. I liked to cook for them when I was home, between deployments." 

"I'm sorry. You lost them?" She sounded more gentle than he could stand.

"Car accident two years ago. You like garlic?"

"Yeah, garlic is fine."

"So you and your boyfriend just used to order in all the time?" he asked, before she could continue on the subject. "How's he dealing with this whole thing?"

"My boyf— what?"

"Moon-faced guy who picked you up in the coffee place?"

She frowned for a moment, then seemed to remember.    
"Oh, Foggy! No, he was a colleague. Before, you know—"

He hummed in acknowledgement, not sure why it mattered. Moved on to cutting up the red pepper. 

"How long for your hair?" he asks over his shoulder.

"What? Oh, uh—ten more minutes I think," she said, as if she'd forgotten all about the dye. 

He hummed in acknowledgement and decided to wait with the frying.

"You gotta place to go?" he asked the onion he was chopping. 

"Yeah," she said softly. "Just doesn't have warm water. Or mirrors."

"Mhmm," he nodded. He hated the thought of her in some basement somewhere, or maybe an abandoned apartment building waiting to be torn down to be replaced with luxury high rises. "You got what you need though? Sleeping bag? Mattress? Food?"

She made affirmative sounds on the first two, and a less certain hum on the third. 

"—way to heat food?"

She hesitated while he beat the eggs, and he nodded to himself. He had camping gear, a box of MREs standing around. He couldn't keep her safe from whatever Fisk could throw at her, however much he wanted to. But he could make her more comfortable, and she could hide better if she didn't have to go out as often. He doubted she still had an income, but he didn't think they were at the stage where that could be brought up.

She went to rinse out her hair, and Frank turned on the stove, putting all the ingredients into the egg mixture. He'd just poured everything into the pan and put it on a very low heat when he heard a bang and a clatter from the bathroom. 

"You okay?"

"Uh, yeah, I'm…" the water turned off, but she still sounded strange, muffled. "No, actually, could you give me a hand here?"

"You want me to come in?" he confirmed. 

"Yeah, please."

He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see. She was on her knees next to the tub in her sports bra, her forehead leaned on the side of the tub so her hair hung over the edge, dripping watery dye. The handheld showerhead had apparently fallen into the tub. 

"My shoulders hurt," she said quietly, keeping her face turned down. She sounded defeated in a way that he hoped never to hear from her again. 

"Want me to rinse it for you?"

She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.   
"Yeah. Please?"

He put on the leftover latex glove and perched on the edge of the tub, gently taking the showerhead from her hand. Gave her a folded navy towel to hold to her face, and then carefully rinsed out the dye, fingers digging through her hair to make sure the water got everything. When he was done with the back of her head he encouraged her to turn around and sit with her head hung back over the tub, so he could get at the dye at her temples. 

He spent long minutes running the warm water through her hair, making sure it didn't run into her eyes. She sighed, her eyes closed, body relaxing, and he maybe kept rinsing and finger-combing her hair longer than was strictly necessary, but she didn't seem to object. 

"There, all done," he said finally. His voice came out lower and softer than he'd intended, and it took a moment for her to open her eyes.

"Thanks," she murmured, for a moment soft and almost sleepy. She accepted the dry towel he offered her, wrapping it around her hair. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet, waiting until she'd caught her balance. Then he cleared his throat and left her to it, suddenly aware of how closely he was standing in the small space.

By the time she came out of the bathroom the frittata was nearly done. She looked like she'd found back her edges, the dark jaw-length hair making her look a little harder, less aetherial. That had been the point, he supposed. 

He gave her half the frittata, more than he thought she'd eat, but she didn't protest, just ate quickly and with economic movements, making no attempt at conversation. Whatever kind of mood she'd had earlier, when he'd helped her with her hair—and he would think about that more some time that was not now— it had clearly passed, and he thought she was probably planning her next move, whatever it was. 

He wasn't sure he even wanted to know. He'd probably sleep better if he didn't. 

After dinner she went into the bathroom to cover her bruise with makeup, and he dug out his little camping stove and the box of MREs for her. He was tempted to make coffee, to invite her to stay a little longer, but she was looking restless and he felt uncomfortably transparent at the thought of offering.

"Thanks," she said softly, as she packed things into her backpack. 

"Yeah, anytime," he heard himself say, before he could consider how that might sound. "Just uh, call first? Warn a guy, huh?"

"Okay," she threw him a glimpse of a grin as she hefted her backpack, and then she was out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With thanks to Bonehandledknife for helping me figure out a lot of this stuff :-)


	7. Chapter 7

Frank didn't hear from her for over a week, which felt like no time at all and also strangely like an eternity. Then there was an envelope of photos and files in his mailbox, which sent his police department on a three-day scramble to roll up an arms dealing operation. 

 

(Brett had given Frank a very dry look when he came into the precinct with the envelope. 

"Got a pet source?" he asked

"More like I'm somebody's pet cop," Frank had huffed ruefully. 

It wasn't like Brett didn't occasionally have 'Don't ask me how I know this' information.)

 

When it was all over he had a few days off to let his injured ribs heal - getting shot in the vest still hurt like a motherfucker. One evening he startled awake to the incoming message sound of his phone. He'd tried to sleep in his bed last night and his ribs hadn't agreed, so this afternoon he'd fallen asleep on the couch halfway into an episode of Pitbulls and Parolees. 

The message was a photo, from an unknown number. Of a skinny looking tabby cat, curled up against somebody's sleepingbag covered legs. 

_ Think I got adopted?  _ Said the accompanying text.

_ Apparently cats do that _ he replied, about 95% certain it was Karen, but not willing to take the risk in case he was wrong.  _ Did you feed it? _

Another photo, a closeup of the cat's sleeping face. It was kinda cute, he had to admit. Looked pretty happy with its current situation, too. 

_ Could you resist this face? _

_ I have been known to feed strays,  _ Frank replied, smiling at his phone. 

_ How do you feel about strays feeding you in return? _

He chuckled, then regretted it when his ribs protested.  

_ Feeling pretty good about that. What did you have in mind? _

_ Chinese? _

_ Sounds good _

_ :) _

 

She knocked on his door 40 minutes later, dressed in jeans and an oversized hoodie from 'Luke's Bar'. No bruises that he could see, which was a relief. She looked… not well-rested, but like she was eating and sleeping, at least. He supposed that was about the best he could hope for. 

She caught him looking at her, something amused in the line of her mouth. Dumped the bag of takeout on the coffee table and wandered into his kitchen for cutlery and the roll of kitchen paper. Last time she had moved like everything was brittle and she couldn’t afford to pay if she broke it. She hadn't even sat down at the kitchen table until he'd invited her to. There was nothing of that hesitation now. She moved around in his apartment as if she'd been there many times, confident of her welcome. 

He supposed that wasn't unfounded. 

"Beer in the fridge," he grunted, carefully lowering himself back onto the couch. 

She hummed in acknowledgement and grabbed two before dropping down on the other end of the two-seater couch. She began to unpack the food, and he made an approving noise when he saw Szechuan pork dumplings, so she handed him the box. Then she put a couple of things on the couch in between them, and passed him one of the beers. 

"Thanks," he grunted, annoyed with feeling like an invalid while she was there.

She flashed him a small, sideways little smile before tucking into her own food. 

 

He wasn't sure how, but they ended up watching a How It's Made marathon, and after a couple of beers he felt heavy and comfortable, the pain in his ribs sinking to the background. Karen was next to him, her socked feet on the coffee table, looking relaxed and comfortable. 

_ This is nice,  _ he thought vaguely, and fell asleep.  

When he woke up it was morning. There was a blanket spread out over him—how the hell she'd managed that without waking him, he wasn't sure. The beer might have helped. He decided not to spend too much thought on it. 

***

It became a routine faster than he would have thought possible. At least once a week she would drop by in the evening, often to shower and do laundry. They took turns providing food; she'd bring takeout or he'd cook. He rather enjoyed those times, digging in his memories for recipes he'd used to enjoy cooking. He had barely cooked for himself since the accident, it had seemed pointless for him alone, so this was… nice. It was nice. 

Sometimes she had research to share with him, but more often than not they ended up sprawled out on the couch, talking and half-watching Animal Planet.  

  
  


As the months passed it became more and more clear that Fisk was still operating out of prison. That wasn't a surprise, somebody with that much power wasn't going to just sit and let life flow him by. But the extent of his dealings, or even just the part that the cops got to see, was frustrating. 

"What are we gonna do? Arrest him again?" Brett said wearily. "Don't have no evidence for the illegal stuff, and the man's got all the important people in his pocket. If we push this, could be our jobs on the line."

"Fuck," Frank sighed. 

They were doing what they could, disrupting Fisk's operations where they could find them, keeping a close eye out for any new initiatives springing up. Karen— and the mysterious people she apparently worked with— occasionally dropped info on him, but it all felt like trying to mop up an incoming tide.

There were rumours of a new collective of vigilantes. A few times Frank got called to the aftermath of what had clearly been a confrontation, pried descriptions out of witnesses. 

Those descriptions usually involved Daredevil, a black-haired woman who could jump from the street straight onto a building roof, and a big black guy who shrugged off a direct knife strike. More irregularly, a few other people—descriptions were always vague. Frank knew that since the witnesses were usually the people who'd been helped by the vigilantes, he wasn't getting more on purpose. 

As if he wanted to arrest vigilantes, when they were doing their part in curtailing Fisk's influence. It was still the party line, but shit would have to get exceptionally blatant for him not to turn his back and leave them to their own business. 


	8. Chapter 8

Time passed.

He kept a few icepacks in his freezer for Karen, and his first aid kit saw a little more use than it had previously, but it wasn't usually more than scrapes. Either she didn't get injured more seriously or she made sure not to let him see her when that happened. At one point she had a stitched up, already healing slash on her right shoulder that made him think it was probably a little of both. 

Sometimes they texted; she'd send him photos of Kitty, the stray cat that wasn't really a stray anymore, her fur glossy now, her frame filled out. He wasn't about to admit that he'd began to look forward to the photos, but he suspected she knew anyway. 

Once or twice he rented a van and helped her move her things to another safehouse. Her latest was an actual apartment complete with electricity and hot water. He was glad for her, the thought of her camping out in damp basements made him twitch. But he couldn't really deny to himself that he'd enjoyed the domesticity of hearing her shower at his place, seeing her fold laundry on his kitchen table. 

On the other hand, he was well aware of how much trust it took for her to let him know her address. And he got to meet Kitty, who didn't like being petted, but liked to ride on shoulders like a small tabby parrot, and apparently curled up behind Karen's knees while she slept. 

He marveled at how normal it had become, that she moved from safehouse to safehouse. That they both kept a close eye on Fisk's dealings to make sure any new active attempts on her life would come forewarned. That they had a routine, of sorts. Not a fixed pattern, but an orbit around each other that felt comfortable, easy. 

  
***

_ Got a favour to ask _

_ Yeah? _

_ I need to go upstate for a few days to follow up a lead. Could you take care of Kitty? _

Frank stared at his phone for a long moment, idly wondering how life had lead him, a confirmed dog guy, to this place. Then he answered,

_ Isn't she a streetcat, can take care of herself for a few days? _

_ I promised her she'd never have to be hungry again  _

Frank didn't even dwell on the fact that she'd made a promise to an animal that couldn't understand her, and still considered the promise binding. He was imagining the imploring face she'd be making if she was asking this in person, and sighed, knowing when he was beat. 

_ Sure. You bringing her over? _

  
  


Karen appeared a few hours later, the cat perched on her shoulders, a bag with food and other cat things in her hand. Frank sighed, more for show than with real annoyance, as Kitty jumped down and began to explore his apartment. 

"I'm a dog person."

"Don't front, I've heard you try to talk her into letting you pet her," Karen countered with a sharp smile, and Frank looked away with a grin, busted. 

"Well,  _ you  _ can pet her."

"Only a little bit, when she's too comfortable to bother moving away," Karen said, putting down the bag. "She gets three of the little cups of kibble per day, no matter how much she says she's starving. And the food should go in a closed cupboard or something, because she will break into the bag and eat herself to death if given half the chance."

Frank nodded, looking at the little cat. With how small she was, it wasn't hard to see she'd probably grown up hungry. He couldn't really blame the critter for food insecurity. 

"I've got some mice around the place, that should entertain her," he said. "We'll be fine."

"Yeah?" she took a deep breath, eyes drifting toward the cat, still sniffing around. "Okay. Great. Thanks."

"You're not eating here?"

"Got someone waiting," she gestured out the door.

He nodded. "Be safe, all right?"

She gave him a small smile, and slipped out the door. 

Frank looked at the cat and sighed. 

 

Later that night he was on his laptop on the couch, when he saw motion at the edge of his vision. That was the thing with a pet in the house - he wasn't used to seeing something move, and it put him on edge. It was Kitty, slinking onto the back of the couch. When he went back to typing, ignoring the cat, she eventually huddled down with her paws folded neatly underneath her—Karen called this a 'Kitty loaf'— and purred softly. 

He manfully resisted the temptation to reach out and try to pet her, and she stayed there until he went to bed. 

(when he woke up he heard a noise at the foot end of the bed, the sound of a cat jumping down. There was a warm spot on the corner of the mattress. He wasn't charmed. Not at all.)

  
  


_ Your weird cat scratches at the door when I'm in the shower. Wtf _

_ She wants to come in and tell you to stop standing under the water _

 

_ Let her in this morning.  _ He texted the next day. _ She yelled at me while I showered. Kinda sounded worried? Crazy cat _

 

By the fifth day, Kitty would loaf on the back of his couch, close enough to purr in his ear. Touching was still on her initiative only - there were headbutts to his shins at feeding time - and he'd stopped trying to pet her. But she seemed to like being close to him, and he had to admit that cats were more affectionate than he'd thought possible. 

 

_ She brought me a mouse _

_ Lucky you! Alive or dead? _

_ Deadish _

_ It's the cat way of saying 'You're nice, big hairless kitten, I don't want you to starve' _

_ Are you fucking kidding me _

 

_ Sorry, going to take a few more days _ , Karen texted on the sixth day.  _ Hope she's not too much trouble _

_ She's decided she's mine now _ , he replied, along with an awkwardly angled video of himself cooking with Kitty riding on his shoulders. She was balancing carefully on the towel he'd draped there to give her something to grip to that wasn't his skin, and occasionally she'd stick out a paw to grab at the spoon he was using. 

_ You're not getting her back. My neighbour would never forgive me, we're mouse free for the first time since I moved in.  _

_ Sure, your neighbour :D _

 

("Hey man, is that cat hair on your uniform?" Brett asked.

"I don't want to talk about it.")

 

Karen stayed away for eight days, and Frank tried not to wonder what she was getting into. If not outright committing them herself, she was definitely an accomplice in a whole laundry list of minor crimes. If he didn't know it was all in the service of curbing Fisk's influence, and that of the other criminal elements in Hell's Kitchen, he might have arrested her by now.

 

She dropped by on the evening of the ninth day, looking more polished than he'd seen her in a long time - maybe ever. Like she'd been shopping and on a spa retreat instead of staying in the grimy motels he'd imagined. 

"You look good, ma'am," he said, hoping he managed to hide his surprise. 

She threw him a smile and moved to the kitchen table to put down the takeout she'd brought. Thai, from the smell of it. 

"Weird, right? Person I was going upstate with refused to stay in the kind of places I normally do, and bankrolled the whole thing," she said, glancing at her manicured nails like she didn't recognise them as her own. 

"Was it also a productive trip?"

"Yeah, got what we needed." she unpacked the takeout while he took out cutlery and glasses. 

"Water or beer?" It was a Thursday, and Frank didn't drink on week nights, his own rule to keep himself from sliding into alcohol dependency after the accident. He didn't mind if she drank though. 

"Water please, I have had more fancy wine and ridiculously expensive tequila over the past week than I have in my entire life."

"Sounds like you really suffered, ma'am," he grinned as they sat down. 

"Yeah, it was a hardship," she threw him a little smile. "Everything go okay here?"

"Yep." He cut his eyes to where the cat, always quick to claim a warm spot, was just settling down on his abandoned laptop. 

"Must say I was a little worried about saddling a self-confessed dog guy with a cat. You really like having her around?" 

"It's been—yeah, actually," he admitted, a little selfconscious under the way she was looking at him. "She makes this sound—when she's asleep and becoming aware of you. Like.. prrrt?"

"The cat activation sound," Karen grinned, stirring her Pad Thai. 

"It's nice," he nodded, unable to quite explain the warm bubble in his chest when he'd woken up that morning to find Kitty curled up next to his pillow, making that warm little sound of recognition and acknowledgement. 

"Were you serious about wanting to keep her?"

He made a vague hum, because it had been a joke, except now she brought it up… not completely a joke. 

"—because I worry, you know. About her. With all the— moving around. If you want her here… that would be—"

"Ma'am, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I—" she looked away, her eyes settling on the cat. She looked very self-satisfied loafed up on his laptop. "Well, I'd still see her when I visit, wouldn't I?"

"Yeah," he said warmly, "yeah, you would."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the people still reading and reviewing! Your feedback means a lot to me


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from sailing!

Weeks passed in their comfortable routine, but something was brewing under the surface in Hell's Kitchen and Frank knew it was related to Daredevil. There were reports of masked men and shadows with swords, 911 calls about bodies that were always gone by the time a squad car could make it out. It drove him nuts to be in the dark about something that was playing, something that felt  _ big _ , and he pressured Karen about it a few times.

"He keeps me in the dark too," she just said, and it was hard to be satisfied with that.

"But you could find out. If you really wanted to."

"He deals with— with very different stuff. I have to trust that he knows what he's doing."

_ So you trust him more than you trust me _ , Frank didn't say.

 

A week later they were sitting on his couch, quietly sharing a bottle of scotch. The day had involved a bust into a child trafficking ring, more scared little faces than he cared to think about. Some grubby, some—worse, maybe— polished and painted and lipsticked. Karen had done a lot of legwork on the ring, had known what they were likely to find, but there was no victory here. Just vodka and shared silence.

Well, almost silence. She kept almost saying something. Glancing at him, drawing the breath for it—choking it back down. Something big on her mind, he thought. He could wait, here with her.

"When we were having coffee. That first time," she finally said, in a slow, deliberate way that told him she was well on her way to being drunk.

"Mm?"

"You said you thought— thought it wasn't my first rodeo."

Yeah, he remembered that. Remembered thinking about the way she'd steadied herself, in the back of his squad car. How fast the shaky fear had gone out of her once she knew he hadn't been in Fisk's pocket. Remembered the way she'd gripped the gun when he gave it back to her, steady, sure. Not the first time she'd held a gun.

"I remember."

"You—" she took a deep breath, let herself sink into the couch. "You were right."

"Wesley was not the first?" he said softly.

She was silent for long moments.

He didn't say anything either, only took the offered bottle for a swig of his own.

"D'you hear about this guy—" she began, after what felt like a long silence. "—last year. Killgrave."

He was silent for a long moment, not sure what the swell of feeling in his gut was on hearing that name.

"The mind control thing, right?" Yeah, he'd heard of it. It had sounded like bullshit at first, people blaming their bad decisions on some mutant. Then as more people came forward it had started to sound a little less like bullshit, but he still didn't really know what to think.

"Yeah," she sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

Something was on her mind about this, like she was tasting a thought, trying it out in her head. He wasn't going to guess, because he knew he was more likely to make her clam up than get it right, and he was willing to wait. They passed the bottle in silence for a while, slowing down a little now.

"What'd you think of it?" she asked suddenly, and he startled, mind elsewhere. "The mind con—control thing?"

"Sounded unbelievable," he shrugged, and she curled in on herself a little tighter, not looking at him, so he added "but then a lot of things seemed unbelievable, you know?"

Aliens, gods, ninjas, super soldiers from the WW2 era coming back to life - none of that was believable either

She hummed in acknowledgement, and they were silent again. He nudged her arm with the bottle, offering it to her, but she shook her head, sunken into thought. Frank leaned back against the couch

"I was having lunch in the park," she began suddenly. "This man— he, he sat down next to me and told me to smile," she said under her breath, low and flat, and he understood the words, but they didn't make sense until she added, slow and tipsy-deliberate, "and I hate when guys do that, but I could not stop smiling."

"Even though you wanted to?" he asked, voice dropping soft and low, trying to see the shape of this.

"He said we were going to take a walk. Offered me his arm. Said I wanted to take it and I—I came with him. Like we w—were on a—on some kind of sick date," she shook her head with a wry scoff, then sank into silence. 

"When he was distracted I tried to talk to a c-cop we met," she continued after a few minutes, sounding distant. Disassociating, he thought. "Tell him I was being held—forced. But I couldn't say the words."

She took a swig from the bottle, shuddered, and took another one with an air of long practice. Panted a little as it made its way down.

"He saw me and c-came up to us. Told the cop he wanted to give his gun to me, and the cop did."

Her hand clenched and relaxed as if she could still feel the shape of it in her hand.

"He sounded so—like he was having fun, you know? Like it was all a great joke. Said he wanted to try something, wanted to know if he was strong enough. Told me I wanted to shoot a man who was sitting there. On a bench. Not even looking at us."

"You didn't want to?" Frank said softly.

"I  _ did  _ want to," she said sharply. "I wanted nothing more, I took aim and I remember the way he looked at me and I wanted to  _ shoot  _ him, so I did."

Frank went very still, because maybe he should have expected her story to turn into this direction, but apparently he had not.

"T-then I didn't want it anym-more," her voice wavered, but she took a deep breath and plowed ahead. "He told me to stop crying. Made the cop pick up the gun and told him he'd—he'd— that he was going to say that he'd been the one to shoot that man. And we just—just—" she choked down some feeling that seemed to Frank to be too big to be contained, but her voice sounded dry and steady when she finished, "—just walked away."

He hummed, suddenly connecting this to a case he'd heard about last year, from another precinct - of a cop who'd just cracked one day and shot a homeless man in Central park. He'd been convicted and later committed suicide in jail. Or been killed by an inmate—just as likely. It had been a couple of months before the big uproar about a mind controlling mutant.

"He told me to go back to work like nothing happened," she said, sounding small, forlorn. "And I did. I wasn't even late…"

Karen shuddered and took another drink from the bottle, nearly empty now. Her motions were definitely unsteady, and Frank got up, walked to his kitchen. Needed the momentary space to process this. Did he believe her?

He didn't want to, because that meant accepting that something so fucked up as mind control was real, and he wasn't sure if he was ready for that. It was just—well, it was hard to deny that it made  _ sense _ . Both the events with that cop that had been reported, a confused, broken man whose testimony had kept changing, and what he saw in Karen. The way she'd flinched and found an excuse to leave the time he'd said 'you should smile more often' because sometimes he had no brain to mouth filter and he'd been struck by her smile. The way she researched and dug and pulled at loose endings until they unravelled, until she knew exactly the measure of the men she set up to fall. Sometimes to die.

She was a blade, glinting in the dark, and perhaps this was what had caused her to sharpen herself.

It occurred to him that this had been a confession.

Not the kind you make to a cop—

the kind you make to a priest.

Only he  _ was  _ a cop, he couldn't turn that part of himself off just because he thought there was a chance she might be telling the truth and hadn't had a choice.

He heard a sound and turned around to see she'd gotten up and was trying to put on her coat. It wasn't cooperating with her drunk fumbling, and he caught a glimpse of her face, the way it was twisted with pain.

"Hey, hey," he went over to her and tried to gently catch her hands in his own. "Are you leaving? Thought you said you'd nowhere else to be."

She kept her eyes on the floor, her jaw setting, pulling back her hands from his grip, hard enough to bash her elbow against the wall. She cursed, stumbled sideways against the wall and slid around to put her back to it, facing him again. Always facing him, like she still wasn't completely sure what to expect from him but she wanted to see it coming.  

"Karen, it's okay," he tried, struggling for the right words because he himself was far from sober. "You don't—don't have to go, okay?"

"I need to—I can't—"

"If you want to leave, let me at least walk you somewhere. You're not—I don't think it'd be safe to go on your own right now."

She stopped moving, just let the wall prop her up, and stared at him with incredulity.

"Or-or you could stay," he offered, cautiously, because he had no idea where her head was at right now. "Sleep on the bed or the couch, whatever you want."

"Y'want me to—I can stay?" her eyes were narrowed with something between skepticism and confusion.       

"I'd like that," he said, voice dropping low. He couldn't articulate why it was important, aside from not wanting her to walk the streets like this, drunk and open, scraped raw.

She puffed out a breath and let herself slide down the wall, until she was sitting on the floor next to his front door. Frank took a step back and crouched down, not wanting to loom over her.

"You want me ta—ta help you to the couch?"

Shake of her head.

"Just wanna stay right there?"

She nodded.

"Okay. That's—that's good."

He rose to collect a couple of cushions from the couch and put them down next to her, then went to get her a glass of water and a bottle of Gatorade.

He puttered around his apartment for a bit, drinking his own water and Gatorade. Considered sitting down with her against the wall, but he was still churning through the knowledge that a cop had died in jail because she hadn't come forward, and he understood  _ why  _ but it wasn't  _ right _ . He didn't think he was the company she needed right now.

Finally he went to where she'd curled up on her side, back still to the wall, hugging one of the cushions to her chest. Kitty had settled down close by. Karen was either asleep or pretending, and he carefully draped his spare blanket over her, then went to bed.

 

He woke some time later from a dip of the bed, and saw her sitting on the edge, wrapped tightly in the blanket he'd given her. The blanket Maria had made, but he wasn't going to think about that.

He hummed and shifted back a little, making space for her on the mattress if she wanted it. She glanced over her shoulder, seeming to hesitate, but Frank just sighed and got comfortable again, eyelids growing heavy.

Finally he felt her lie down, her back to him, and slowly relax.

 

He'd half expected her to be gone by morning, but apparently not even she could wake early to sneak out with a hangover. When he woke up he was still laying much as he'd gone to sleep - years of sleeping in narrow racks and in ranger graves had trained him not to move in his sleep - but Karen had turned around. The blanket had wrapped tightly around her shoulders, pinning her arms against her body, and her forehead was tucked against his bicep. Her light breaths brushed the skin of his arm, and he shivered a little.

It wasn't like he hadn't noticed that in certain moments, from certain angles, she looked like she belonged in a Renaissance painting instead of his dingy, bare apartment. More notably, they spent enough time together that she filled a place in his life that had previously been Maria's. He didn't know what place he took in Karen's mind, but he'd had to stop himself a few times from falling into the easy, familiar affection he'd shared with his wife. From unthinkingly calling her  _ sweetheart  _ or reach to kiss her goodbye.

He shied away from the realisation that he'd just nearly pressed a sleepy kiss to her forehead. He was well aware of how touch-starved he was, thank you very much.

Just then she shifted, frowning in her sleep. Her breathing picked up, and he thought she might wake, but her eyes were still moving rapidly under her eyelids. Then she jerked, apparently feeling her arms restricted. He heard Kitty leap off the foot end of the bed, startled or offended by the sudden motion.

Frank kept his eyes on Karen and said her name, soft and low. She jolted, fighting the blanket with a sound of panic in her throat.

"Karen,  _ Karen _ ," Frank said, grunting when a flailing knee got him in the bruise on his left thigh. "Wake up. Come on, here." He leaned up on his elbow enough to put his other hand flat on her breastbone, spread fingers brushing her collarbones. Her breath gusted out, startled, as he leaned in and put some weight on her. He pinned her to the mattress just long enough to tug the edge of the blanket out from under her, freeing her arms. As soon as he released her she yanked up her arms and folded them tightly in front of her chest, and he retreated to his side of the bed, giving her space to reorient herself.

It took a while for her breathing to come down.

"You with me now?" Frank asked finally, his head propped up on his bicep.

She made a hum that he chose to interpret as 'yes', and then she flung the offending blanket off herself and got up, wobbling for a moment. Not meeting his eyes before she walked out of his bedroom.

While she showered Frank got up to make coffee. He hesitated over breakfast options. It was sunday, he didn't have anywhere to be, but he doubted she would stick around.

He wasn't wrong. She gulped down the too-hot coffee he offered her, not speaking, avoiding his eyes. Frank was still trying to figure out what was going on, brain slow and groggy from the hangover. Was still trying to work out if she was angry, what he should say or not say, when she slipped out the door minutes later.

"Shit," he sighed.

  
  


She went no contact for a couple of weeks, and he told himself he understood that she needed the space, he really did, but it still burned him. She'd shown him a fragile part of herself, a raw, open wound of violation and loss of control, and he'd reacted— well, he'd reacted like a cop, which was what he was. Could she have expected any other reaction? He vacillated between feeling guilty for not believing her in the way she'd needed, and being annoyed that she didn't apparently know him well enough to know she'd get a cop reaction, not a priest reaction.

If she needed space, he could give her that.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is very much appreciated!


	10. Chapter 10

**FISK TO BE RELEASED THIS WEEK** read the headline.

 

There was a long, long voicemail message from Karen that at first was only silence, with the occasional rustle or sigh. It was the first sign of contact he'd had from her since that drunken night, so Frank put his phone on speaker while making himself a sandwich, too frustrated and exhausted to want to bother with cooking. He'd seen this coming, of course, there'd been rumours. He and Mahoney had ranted at each other at length about how this really shouldn't be happening, how this wasn't the law they'd sworn to uphold.

But it  _ was  _ happening. Good behaviour and greased palms and Fisk was getting out, as legal as you please. Ready to pick back up where he'd left off. It was enraging. The only thing they could do was keep an eye on him and hope to catch him in the act of something, but given how careful he'd been before, that wasn't likely. And they couldn't even keep too close of an eye, because anything that could be construed as harassment would be, and then there'd be hell to pay from the District Chief.

"Could lose our jobs on this one, Castle," Mahoney had sighed. "Best case scenario."

Frank had grunted in acknowledgement, and the unspoken 'might be worth it' hung had between them. If it was for good, at least. If he could be sure Fisk would be behind bars for the rest of his life like he deserved, Frank thought he'd be willing to sacrifice his career for it. Private security was still an option, probably. Go back to the sandbox for another couple of years. What did it really matter, anyway? Not like he had a family waiting for him at home.

He startled from his contemplation of the mustard jar when there was a rustle from his phone speaker.

".... _ Jesus _ , Frank," he heard Karen say. She sounded like she had her face in her hands. "I mean we knew this was coming, but I guess I had  _ some  _ kind of faith in a just universe, you know?"

"Yeah, you and me both," Frank agreed, even though it was a recording from hours ago.

"Anyway, I'm just—sorry for clogging up your voicemail."

The recording ended.

His hand hovered over his phone for far longer than he was willing to admit to.

_I need a drink. Want a drink?_ He texted her.

She didn't answer, but 25 minutes later there was a knock on his door.

  
  


"You know, drinking around you hasn't exactly—" she looked away, uncharacteristically skittish, and stayed just outside the door.

Frank grimaced a little, because the way she'd opened up to him weeks ago clearly still bothered her, or perhaps his reaction to what she'd said. He opened the door a little further for her.

"I have orange juice," he offered. "Long as you don't mind that I—"

She hesitated, and he thought he saw her consider what kind of drunk he'd be, frustrated about Fisk. If he'd get loud, volatile. He was a cop, he recognised the mental calculation she was making. 

Then she seemed to reach a conclusion, and stepped over the threshold. 

He left the door unlocked for her, an easy exit route if she wanted it, but wasn't sure she noticed - she was already underway to his couch, and he almost reeled with the sheer amount of faith she had in him.

"We're gonna watch a silly movie though, okay?"

"Sure."  _ Whatever you want. Whatever you need.  _

They'd probably both already done all the angry ranting that was in any way useful, anyway.

He got them both glasses and put the orange juice on the coffee table as well as the bottle of scotch. Meanwhile she queued up The Fifth Element on Netflix.

"Have you seen this?"

"Don't think so," he said, dropping down on the couch next to her.

"Oh good."

He wondered if she was checking if he had any specific memories connected to it, watched it with his family maybe. Or maybe she just wanted to know if he had an opinion on it.

Frank poured himself a glass, and on Karen's gesture, her too.

  
  


The booze started to really hit him partway into the movie. Which was absurd and had been amusing all along, but by the time Corben Dallas declared himself a meat popsicle suddenly Frank heard himself laugh, leaning toward the screen. He might even have giggled, but he wasn't going to admit to that. He'd alternated with water, building up a pretty good buzz. Karen was sipping on her OJ and scotch, going slower than he was, but letting down her guard more than he'd expected. 

By the time Rhuby Rhod came on screen they were both laughing out loud, Karen with a hand over her mouth, and for some reason that got to him, the way she was always suppressing her reactions, keeping everything in. He wanted to  _ see  _ her, hear her unrestrained joy. So it seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do to lean in and tug on her forearm, uncovering her lips, which were pursed in laughter  

He was unbalanced, half leaning against her, and the way she looked at him, full of amusement, made him bold. Let him trace the line of her lips with his fingertips, mind buoyed with alcohol and giddy joy.

He felt her sharp intake of breath, the way her lips softened under his touch. Then she parted them and it was his turn to gasp as she grazed the pad of his finger with her teeth. Apparently his impulse control was severely impaired by the alcohol, because the next moment he was leaning in to press his lips against hers, and she responded eagerly.

A low groan rumbled through his chest at the way she kissed him back, at the mingled tastes of whiskey and orange juice and at the way her hand clung on to his shoulder, steady and sure.

"This is a bad idea," one of them mumbled into the kiss at some point. He honestly wasn't sure if he'd said it or she had.

"Very bad," he agreed. His hand slid to the nape of her neck, kneading lightly, and she made a low, breathy sound, pushing into him and straddling his lap. "Terrible."

His hand moved as if without his input, spread on her lower back and slid up, rucking up her shirt. He was vaguely aware of how his spread fingers spanned almost her entire back, bringing her closer against him.

"And yet," she nipped on his lower lip, "you don't seem to be stopping."

"Was waitin' for you to," he said, in between kisses.

"Why? I'm not the one saying this is a bad idea," she chuckled into his mouth. He groaned at the way her hips rocked against his. "And I'm greedy and selfish."

He made a protesting noise.

"I am. If I wasn't, I'd stay away and save you the moral dilemma," she said, shrugging. "But since I am... If you're not kicking me out, I'm not going."

She cupped his face and drew him to her again, and suddenly his head was full of Maria, the way she'd used to touch him, draw him down to her when she wanted a kiss and he was too tall to reach. Maria's perfume was suddenly in his nose, the scent of her shampoo, the way she'd hummed approval into his mouth when he touched her, and—

It was like a bucket of cold water. Frank tore himself back and shifted her off his lap, grimacing when Karen fell back into the cushions, but unable to focus on anything but the unease roiling in his gut, the sense that everything was  _ all wrong _ , because Maria was dead, would never touch him like that again, and how could he just—somebody else, somebody else's hands on his face and that was not  _ right _ , and he was struggling to breathe, trying to squash down the memory of Maria looking at him from the passenger seat of the car, smiling at him, the screech of the truck, the way he'd swerved, too little, too late—

"Frank?" Karen's voice sounded soft and distant, and he looked up to see she'd gotten up from the couch, was standing a few paces away. "I'm sorry. That wasn't… I'm sorry."

Despite what she'd said about not going unless he kicked her out, when next he focused on the present, she'd already left. He couldn't decide if she'd fled because she didn't want to deal with his baggage, or if it had been her way of trying to give him space.

He supposed it didn't really matter. 

The movie was still playing.


	11. Chapter 11

By the next evening his hangover had passed and Frank had decided he wasn't going to let this sit for another month. Which was probably what would happen if he left it up to Karen.

He picked up Chinese from what he knew was her favourite takeout restaurant, and went to her place. It was a bold move, he knew. He'd never been to any of her safehouses unless he'd been expressly invited. But things had ended so… uneasily the night before, he felt like he needed to move boldly.

He ruthlessly squashed his doubts as he walked up to her door, refusing to consider that she might not be here, or not want to see him. Then he took out his phone and called her, because he'd seen her reaction to an unexpected knock on the door. He wasn't going to cause that if he could help it.

"Hey there," she answered on the second ring, sounding a little breathless.

"Hey," he said, voice dropping warm and low. "You have dinner yet?"

It was only 7:20 pm and left to her own devices she tended to forget until later, so he doubted it.

"Uh, no?"

"Open your door?"

"Are you bringing me food now?" she sounded like she was smiling, and there was laughter in the background, and shit, she wasn't alone, there was at least one other woman in there, more likely two, he shouldn't have come here—

The door opened, and Karen was barefoot, in sweatpants and a tshirt. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and her face looked a little flushed, eyes sparkling with mirth. It faded as she looked at him.

"Hey, you okay?" she asked, and he startled a little, because that was what he'd come to ask her.

"Yeah, uh—just didn't want to leave things after— but you have company."

"It's okay, we were  _ just  _ leaving!" a woman called from inside, and he heard the sound of high heels. Two women were squeezing past Karen now, looking elegant and entirely out of place in the dilapidated old apartment with its water-damaged walls. The Asian woman stopping to whisper something in her ear, causing Karen to hiss 'Elle!"

The other, a blonde, looked familiar, and it took Frank a few seconds to realise that he'd seen her face on adverts. Trish Talk. Trish Walker. 

She smiled at Frank, genuinely friendly, and he nodded in acknowledgement, feeling awkward standing at the door with the bag of takeout. Karen didn't look resentful, like somebody whose friends were abandoning her might, but she rolled her eyes at the smugly pleased "You two have fun now" of the one called Elle.

"Well," Karen said as the two women disappeared down the hallway. "That... happened. Come in?"

He followed her inside and set the takeout on the folding table next to the tiny kitchen.

"They get the wrong idea about us, ma'am?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, looking away, grabbing cutlery. "What's the wrong idea and what's the right one?"

"Yeah, that's…" that was fair, really. He hesitated, distracted himself with unpacking the food. It was exactly the question he'd been trying to avoid to himself, wasn't it? He'd been drunk and she'd been right there and he'd forgotten himself for just a few blissful minutes before everything came thundering back into his head.

"I'm sorry about that, ma'am. I shouldn't have—" 

Her face went blank, and she turned away to poke around in the fridge. 

"I'm not—" Frank gestured vaguely even though she couldn't see him, praying for her to take mercy and understand the things he was failing to articulate. He wasn't sure  _ what  _ he was not. The kind of person to kiss somebody just because he was drunk, maybe. He  _ wasn't _ . But he wasn't sure what telling her that would achieve, and he was still chewing on the thought that  _ she  _ didn't seem like the kind of person to kiss somebody just because she was drunk,  _ either _ . Plus, he didn't remember her drinking more than a glass. 

_ I'm greedy and selfish,  _ she'd said, hadn't she? He still wasn't sure how to take that. 

"Okay, so they did have the wrong idea," she nodded to herself, staring into the fridge for another long moment. Then she closed it without taking anything out, and faced him, her expression a pleasant-neutral. "So why are you here?"

"Like I said," he answered, sitting down on one of her rickety kitchen chairs. "Didn't want to leave things like… like that."

She nodded, opening her food and digging in, and he did the same, feeling frustrated because he felt at sea here, uncomfortable with this kind of conversation and unsure where her head was at. She wasn't really giving him anything to go on.

"So how  _ do  _ you want to leave them?" she asked eventually.

"I— I like this friendship we have, ma'am," he said, once he'd chewed and swallowed. "I didn't want to wait another month to… well."

"For me to get in touch, you mean," she said, with something of wry amusement.

"Yeah, well."

She hummed in acknowledgement and nodded, and then, quick and dexterous with her chopsticks, she stole one of his dumplings right from under his nose. He supposed that meant they were okay now, the kiss behind them, mutually agreed to pretend it hadn't happened.

He wasn't so sure he could do that, but it was probably for the best to try.

 

  
Things went back to normal for a while. Well, sort of, because Fisk was back out in the world and the precinct was on edge. Frank felt like he was in a live war zone where fighting could break out any moment, and Karen's levels of caution went to a point where even she admitted to not being sure if it was caution or paranoia. She changed hair colour and styles regularly, used makeup to alter the shape of her face. He was pretty sure she was moving back and forth at random between several safe houses now, and their semi-regular friday night dinners had started to become random days and random times.

It wore on her. She didn't seem to sleep much, judging by the way she grew increasingly wan and thin, with bruises under her eyes. She'd always liked coffee as much as he did, but he came to suspect she subsisted on it now, and whenever she ate with him he tried a little harder to cook healthy food, poured liberal cream into her coffee.

He didn't drink anymore when she was around, telling himself it was just the responsible thing to do. 

Frank was busier with his informant network than ever, determined to keep a grasp on what Fisk was up to. They didn't succeed in having eyes on the man all the time, but they at least had a rough idea where he was. Where he was getting up to his shady dealings. It was endlessly enraging that they knew he was doing illegal things but couldn't arrest him, not unless they wanted him to be free within hours and with double the grudge. No, they had to wait until they had a watertight case, until they could actually put him away again, and it galled both Mahoney and Frank beyond belief.

Frank knew that Karen had her own network and that she and her... Friends? Associates? Might well have a better view of Fisk, not restrained by the boundaries of the law.

This time though, she wasn't sharing.


	12. Chapter 12

"Hey, man, something is happening with the big guy," his informant started the call, and Frank braced himself. He'd been on his way into the precinct when the call came, but now he got back into his squad car.

"What is it?"

"He just got a call and lost his shit, you know? Smashed the phone into the wall, then trashed half a room raging about 'that nosy little bitch'. Now he's on his way to the docks."

"Fuck," Frank started the car. "You got eyes on him? He on his own?"

"No, he just left. And yeah, driving himself."

Frank disconnected the call and tossed the phone into the passenger seat, pealing out of the precinct yard. Two of Karen's safehouses were in warehouses down by the docks, and it was far too much to hope for that 'that nosy little bitch' didn't refer to her.

There was no sign of anybody at the first safehouse, and he cursed up a storm, knowing he was wasting valuable time, time that might well make the difference between Karen alive or dead.

Arriving at the second place, an abandoned warehouse where she'd set up a bolthole in one of the upstairs offices, he saw a black SUV that he knew was one of Fisk's.

Frank hadn't thought to put on his lights and sirens, and he had enough presence of mind to close his car door quietly, to slip into the building without a sound. From what Frank had seen, Fisk was the kind of man who liked people to know exactly why they were getting killed. If he thought he had time, he might still be talking to Karen.

  
  


"Thank you for finally informing me about what happened to my associate, Miss Page. It has been weighing on my mind," Frank heard from somewhere in the cavernous downstairs hall. Fisk had a loud, booming voice, projecting like he was on a stage, and it was hard to locate the source of it. 

"But you have to know Wesley was more than my associate, that he was my  _ friend _ , Miss Page."

Frank entered the space on quiet feet, slower than he'd like, but once he was a little further in and moving behind a stack of old pallets, Fisk came into sight. He was back in the loading docks, a heavyset, imposing figure in his neat suit.

Karen was standing about 15 paces away from him, her back to a pillar, her handgun in a two-handed grip and aimed at the man's chest. She looked pale and determined, her breath fast and flat.

"—and you  _ took  _ him from me, Miss Page, you  _ murdered  _ him when I needed him more than ever.  I don't know why you chose to come clean,  but I have come to count the cost, and it will be slow, and painful. But don't worry, it will be deadly in the end."

"Like it was for Ben Ulrich?" Karen said, and Frank wasn't sure he even recognised her voice.

"Yes, yes exactly," Fisk boomed, sounding pleased, like he was a teacher speaking to a bright child. "We had a nice conversation, like you and I are having right now, and then I beat him to death for his transgressions against me. He was grateful to me in the end, believe me. Grateful that I let it all end for him."

Frank almost stopped in his tracks, because that had been a confession if ever he'd heard one, and two people had heard it. Combined with what they'd already had on the Ulrich case, it would be enough. He'd been looking for a valid reason to arrest Fisk, and here it was, thrown right into his lap. It was almost too good to be true.

He stepped out from behind the stacks of pallets, handgun trained on Fisk.

"Wilson Fisk, you are under arrest—"

" _ No _ ."

It took Frank longer than it should have to realise it wasn't Fisk saying that.

That it was Karen.

"What the  _ hell  _ are you doing here, Castle. Get  _ out _ ," she hissed, her eyes never leaving Fisk, her gun not wavering. And Frank rocked back on his heels, because she sounded  _ furious  _ and this— this was.

This was apparently not the situation he'd thought it was. Had she lured Fisk here? Had the call that had made him so angry he'd driven here on his own been Karen's? Or had she just decided how it was going to go once he came for her, and he was getting in the way of her plan?

He felt a flash of unease at the thought that she might have orchestrated this, might have set up the situation in advance purely to get the chance to kill Fisk. He wanted to believe she wasn't that person. Wasn't that ruthless. But her expression right now suggested otherwise. 

"Yes, Agent Castle. This doesn't concern you," Fisk said, like the personable statesman he still played sometimes. "Miss Page and I are just discussing our differences of opinion. We will resolve them ourselves, I assure you."

Frank wondered if he really wasn't worried about the gun Karen had trained on him, or if he was just hiding it very effectively. He wasn't sure Karen intended to let the man walk out of here, but he had something that might change her mind. 

"Karen, you don't have to do this," he began, keeping his weapon and his eyes on Fisk. "We both heard him confess to Ulrich's murder. I can arrest him, this is enough evidence, we can get him back behind bars."

"And then?" she scoffed, her voice just a little shaky. "Watch him rule his empire from there and get out again in a year?"

"We can— I know it's—" he began, but she continued,

"No. It ends here." she drew a harsh breath. "It  _ has  _ to end here."

She took the safety off her gun, and Frank had the sinking realisation that he was about to watch a man get killed in front of his eyes.

That he ought to stop it.

That he ought to be training his weapon on her instead.

A clean cop, a cop who followed the law, the cop he tried to be, would turn his weapon on her. Would shoot her, if necessary, to make sure she didn't kill Fisk.

"Agent!" Fisk boomed, still sounding genial, but with perhaps a little more intent. "Are you truly going to stand by and let this happen? Protect and serve, isn't it?" He spread his arms, large hands open. Karen shifted her weight at the motion. "I'm unarmed," Fisk continued. "I'm the one you're supposed to protect, here. "

"Sir, be quiet," Frank said, because every word was making Karen look more determined. Fisk was right that he should be redirecting his weapon.  

"Karen, don't do it," he said, almost pleaded, instead. "You are not a killer. I believe that, I believed you when you said Wesley was self defence—”

Fisk began to say something, but Karen's finger twitched for the trigger, and Frank snapped "Sir, be  _ quiet _ !"

“ —Don't prove me wrong to trust you,” Frank implored to her, taking in her shocky stance, the way she was letting the concrete of the pillar at her back support her, “I know you're not a killer, I  _ know  _ you. You don't need to do this."

Her expression flickered with something, and he thought he saw her waver. She took a step to the side, and then several backward, like she was trying to make more distance from Fisk, to slip away, and Frank felt a surge of relief. She wasn't going to do it — she was de-escalating. 

Fisk saw it too, and before Frank could get beyond an urgent "Sir!" Fisk was walking after her, huge hands spread wide in what was only nominally a disarming gesture, especially after explaining how he'd killed Ben Ulrich. Frank glanced at Karen and saw her suddenly steady hands around the gun, the way her shoulders pulled back with determination, like she'd sliced through a knot. She elbowed a big red button she'd been heading toward, and there was a buzzing sound. 

A loading door began to lower with a heavy rattle. Frank realised she was inside the dock space and that Fisk had just followed her in. Realised that had been her intention. That the door was about to take both of them from his sight.

"You don't have to do this!" he shouted over the noise. "Karen! If you go through with this I can't help you, I won't help you, you understand?"

She glanced at him, just a moment, and he saw the hurt, the pain in her face. What he was saying was reaching her, this was hurting her, and he saw his chance, grabbed the only lever he could see right now. "If you kill him, you're dead to me!" he shouted.

She was very still for a moment as that sank in, and then her expression hardened, and she only nodded in acknowledgement.

As the lowering door was about to hide her face from his view she turned back to him and mouthed something, and it took a moment too long to process what he read from her lips.

"I have to."

Then the loading door was at knee level and he saw her square her stance, ready to shoot, and he could only shout "NO!" as he was closed off from whatever was happening there.

Two shots rang out in that closed off space, and then he heard a body thump against the door, and he was running toward where he saw another door control button to get it raised back up.

By the time he ducked under the door as it was rising, Fisk was on the concrete, a bullet hole perfectly centered in his forehead, and Karen was pushing open the far door, her back to him.

"All the things I've turned a blind eye to, and you do  _ this!"  _ he shouted after her, furious with himself for allowing this to happen, for not seeing that she was playing them both, for choosing his personal feelings about Fisk and Karen over what he ought to have done as a cop. Furious with her for putting him into this position. She halted, looking back. Her eyes looked huge, and she seemed feral, a wild, unknowable woman he'd never seen before. "Right in front of me!" his voice boomed around the room. "This was _not_ self defence, Karen, not even you can claim that. You lured him here! Premeditation makes it  _ murder _ . There's no turning back from this. You're dead to me."

Her reply was soft, not a trace of defiance in her face. Just then the loading door finished raising and he heard her perfectly in the sudden, ringing silence.

"Maybe I'm already dead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, sorry for the slow updates. I still don't really know how to conclude this story. (Why do I do this to myself)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I can't believe it either, but the Punisher kinda shook loose this story, and I might even have found a satisfying ending for it

She was dead to him.  _ Dead _ . No more worrying for her safety, she'd made sure of that. No more meetings over coffee. No more quiet smiles at his kitchen table.

None of it.  

For about three weeks, he managed not to think about her at all. Or at least, no longer than a few seconds before he forcefully turned his thoughts away.

Kitty made it extra hard, and a few times when he couldn't stand it any longer he put the cat outside, told her 'You were a street cat, you can fend for yourself'. She would go, and he'd feel like the worst person in the world. Then a day or two later she'd be at his door again, meowing in an affronted tone until he opened the door and she could wind her way around his shins, and the relief of it was incredible. 

After a while he just accepted that he was stuck with the cat. A permanent reminder of Karen and the mess he'd made of his life because of her. He'd lied to his colleagues, again. Concealed his own role in Fisk's shooting by reporting that Karen had shot Fisk the moment she had become aware of Frank's presence. He reported what he'd heard though – Fisk confessing to the Ulrich murder, threatening Karen's life.

With pressure of Fisk's lawyer, a warrant for her arrest had gone out, her description circulated.

 

(S _ ounds like it was a 'kill or be killed' situation for Miss Page _ , Mahoney had said under his breath.

Frank hummed noncommittally and Mahoney had added disbelievingly,  _ what, you think she could have just walked away? _

He wished he could have explained how it had gone, how she  _ had _ had the option of letting Frank arrest Fisk, of walking away. If he was even still convinced of that himself. His mind was roiling with enough contrary emotions without Mahoney defending Karen.)

 

At night he churned endlessly through his shame for not having done what a good cop ought to have done, his shame for having been so affected by her that he'd let her shoot somebody right in front of him. And the stark realisation that there had been three possible outcomes - Fisk dead, Fisk in jail, and Karen dead - and that when it came down to it, he was glad it had been the first one. Fisk in jail wouldn't have solved anything, and besides that, with Fisk's ability to run things from a jail cell, Karen would likely have been dead within the week anyway. 

Apparently Frank wasn't so dedicated to maintaining the law after all, and that burned him - how could you be a cop, a good cop, if you didn't believe in due process? And if he wasn't a good cop, what the hell was he?

He'd come out of the morally murky mess of his deployments with a profound wish to be on the good side of clearly drawn lines. Had naively thought that being a cop could provide such a thing, and thrown himself into the job with his whole heart. 

Maybe he should have become a firefighter instead. 

Because Karen hadn't been wrong. Fisk's death had shaken loose a lot of the power structure that had been rebuilt since his arrest. Frank had little doubt that other organisations were already moving into the vacuum, but in a certain light, and especially for certain people, Hell's Kitchen had become a great deal safer. 

He grimaced every time he remembered what he'd shouted at her, trying to stop her from running.  _ This wasn't self defence. You're dead to me. _ It had been his own deep frustration and self-loathing speaking more than his opinion of her, and he wished he could—

He wasn't sure. He tried not to think about how everything seemed a little more greyscale now, the evenings longer, Animal Planet not as interesting. 

  
  


Then, five weeks after Fisk's death had shook up Hell's Kitchen, there came in a report at the precinct about a big vigilante bust-up in a warehouse. And how one of them, a tall woman some called The Investigator, had to be carried out of there.

Frank had a hunch, a sour, heavy feeling in his gut that wouldn't let up. For the first time since it had happened – that moment in the warehouse still had that sense of pivotal importance in his mind, the  _ before _ and  _ after _ sharply divided – he didn't immediately squash the thought of contacting her. Trying to, anyway. He doubted her old number would still work, but she'd had a backup phone she'd only used once with him, and that was worth trying.

He managed to hold off trying, keeping an ear out for any more information about the altercation. Somebody had seen a large black guy – Frank thought that was probably Luke Cage, who was known to run with this group – carry away 'the Investigator,' and presumably that meant somebody was looking after her. She didn't need Frank's interference, in all likelihood didn't want it.

But after two days of uncertainty about if she was even alive, Frank was willing to admit that  _ he _ needed the contact, needed to know if she was all right. He'd told her she was dead to him and now the reality that she might really be dead clenched in his gut like a vice. 

  
  


So he tried that backup phone number. It hadn't been disconnected, and he left a message. Tried again a few hours later, and then again late that night, very aware that his messages had a tone of increasing urgency. When there was still no answer by morning he hardly knew what to do with himself, wasn't even hiding it very well at work anymore. Mahoney had given him a look today that made it clear he was close to asking.

 

"Look, if I don't hear something from you tonight, I'm going to go  _ looking  _ for you," he hissed into her voicemail, even though he was at home and there was no real need to keep his voice down. "And it's going to be loud and messy and everything you don't want, and it'll probably fuck things up for you. You know I wouldn't do that unless I thought you might be dying in some basement somewhere." He disconnected the call feeling even more agitated. He'd start with that moon-faced lawyer friend, Foggy.

 

Twenty minutes later she called back, and he answered, probably sounding more urgent than he'd meant to,

"Karen?"

"Hey man, it's Malcolm from Alias Investigations," a friendly male voice said, and Frank felt his pulse pick up with a sort of pre-battle readiness.

"Who the hell are you and why do you have her phone?" he ground out. He was behind his laptop, so he typed _Alias Investigations_ into google.

"I just told you who I am," the man said patiently, "and I have her phone because we have her."

Alias Investigations wasn't far off. He could be there in under ten minutes. He was already thinking what kind of weaponry to bring - and if to call Mahoney for assistance or if to go alone - when he heard somebody talk in the background of the call.

"Oh, my colleague rightfully points out that sounds like we've kidnapped Karen. We haven't. We were with her on a job and she got injured, she's recovering here."

It took Frank a few breaths to switch gears, and he said nothing.

"She's not doing too great with things like light and sound right now, man, but—"

"But?"

"But you can drop by to see her, if you want," Malcolm finished, sounding… sounding  _ kind  _ in a way Frank couldn't deal with right now. So he didn't.

"Where?" 

Malcolm gave him an address - the same address registered to Alias Investigations - and Frank disconnected the call with a grunt, getting his firearm from his gun safe and shrugging into his jacket. People on the street scattered out of his way as he walked, but he was barely aware of it.

Alias Investigations was in some residential walk-up, looked like it might have once been a nice enough place. As he got out of the stairwell he saw the sign on the door at the end of the hallway. The door was half open, and somebody had clearly been keeping an ear out for his arrival, because as he approached somebody stepped out.

She was tall and slight, with black hair brushing the collar of a battered motorcycle jacket. Her jeans-clad legs went down into unlaced combat boots, like she'd just stepped into them when she heard him arrive.

"Hey. You must be the cop," she greeted him, something surprisingly nonchalant in her posture. It wasn't like he intentionally intimidated people, but this was a reaction he didn't inspire often ( _ except from her, except from Karen _ , a treacherous thought whispered) "Jessica Jones."

"Where is she," he said, any pretense at politeness worn away by the sheer weight of his concern, by still hearing that 'we have her' in the back of his mind.

She made a 'just a minute' kind of gesture.

"She's okay - she has a severe concussion. We've had a nurse visit her and she's already beginning to improve, okay?"

He grunted in acknowledgement.

"She needs to stay calm, so you wanna shake off this big angry man thing, or you're just gonna agitate her."

Frank glared at her, and she gave him a completely unintimidated, raised-eyebrow look.

"You're gonna tell her she needs to stop because she's going to get herself killed," she stated. "You have that look."

He grunted, annoyed with having been pegged so precisely.

"Listen, she's gonna do what she feels she's gotta do. You can either back her up, or get the hell out of her way," the woman said. "Going in there and growling at her because you are worried will only make her want you in the second category."

Frank hummed, wondering at how apparently this Jessica did not know about the part where he'd shouted to Karen that she was dead to him. Did they still think he helped her?

Should he tell her? It seemed dishonest to bank on an assumption of friendship that no longer existed.

Then again, it might be his only chance to see her. 

And he was the one who'd ended the... friendship? Whatever the hell it was they'd had. Maybe she was still willing to— maybe they could—

—he wouldn't be here if she was truly dead to him.

He just hoped she wouldn't throw it in his face, reject him in turn.

“ I'll— I know. That she does what she needs to do,” he finally said.

And he  _ did  _ think he understood it now, that Fisk had needed to die. Hell's Kitchen seemed to breathe easier, since then. There wasn't the sense anymore that the neighbourhood was being slowly squeezed to death, and he'd never really understood that that feeling was there until it was gone.

Ms Jones made a skeptical sound, giving him another assessing look, but then shrugged.

“ Fine. You upset her, and I'll boot you out.”

Frank felt his eyebrows rise, because she sure didn't look like she'd be able to do that, but then he remembered the stories he'd heard about her role in the vigilante teamups he'd caught wind of. Right.

“ Fair enough.”

She lead him a few steps away from the door marked Alias Investigations, to a different apartment. Scratched her nails on the door, and a few moments later a young black man opened it.

“ Malcolm, this is Karen's pet cop,” Ms Jones said blithely.

“ Uh, hi.”

Frank took him in.

“ Hi,” he said finally. “She here?”

“ Yeah, let me just... can you take off your shoes?”

Frank looked down to see Malcolm was barefoot, and shrugged, bending down to unzip his boots and stepping out of them. Ms Jones kept hers on. Then he was lead into a dark bedroom, curtains tacked closed, and another heavy curtain drawn in front of the door. Ms Jones stayed outside.

“ Karen?” Malcolm said under his breath. “Somebody here to see you.”

It took Frank a minute to adjust to the gloom, to be able to see the bed where she was curled up.

She made a soft noise, a question maybe, and he couldn't help himself, all his reservations evaporating at the sight of her. He went to the bed and sank to his knees beside it.

“ Ma'am," he sighed in relief.

“ ...Frank...?” her voice was little more than a breath, and from this close he could see that she had an ice pack under her head, cooling the back of her skull. A shudder went through him at how serious this must be, must have been. That she was awake now and even recognising people indicated – he hoped it did, at least – that she was heading in the right direction.

That she was recognising  _ him _ might mean she saw a way forward, a way for them to be in contact again.

(Or it might indicate memory loss.

Might indicate that she didn't remember killing Fisk in front of him.

Didn't remember what he'd shouted at her.)

“ Yes, ma'am,” he rumbled, and her hand wormed its way out from between the sheets, reached toward him. Without his direction, his own hand answered the touch, curled around hers to cradle her fingers.

They'd sort it out later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reviews are love and encouragement

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [Primarybufferpanel](http://primarybufferpanel.tumblr.com/) on tumblr too, please come talk to me about Kastle, this AU, Kastledevil...


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